I retested this issue with the current beta 7.83.6b, but I couldn't find any diagnostic output:

Compiling MAIN.C - [Esc] to abort........... 0.195 sec
Running MAIN.C.
2 objects
Main started at 2.686 in debug mode
D3D_Init Window: 1024x600
Backbuffer: 1024x600 -> Window: 1x1024x600x32
Video memory found: 2191 MB
edsel_start.avi video opened
avi isn't playing anymore.
def_startup started
Main loop at 4.415..ok...
Server started at 4.415
Client started at 4.415.
1st frame with 2191 MB at 4.416
Normal exit at 8.296
Close level,DLL,objects
Free input,funcs,panels,defs,syns,views,strings,vars..ok
Free sounds,bmaps,fonts,hash,defs1,script..ok
Close dx,multimedia,D3D,engine,physics,nexus..ok
A7 Engine - Pro Edition V7.83.6b - Mar 22 2010
(c) Conitec - Dieburg - San Diego - www.3dgamestudio.comacknex.dll
Close window at 8.394

Regards,
Pegamode.

There's definitely something wrong. You should see the output "Stream xxxx ended" in the file. It seems as if the CODEC does not trigger a start and end event. I'll have to contemplate this further. Inbetween I strongly suggest to use a different video format.

Is there any CODEC you would recommend? We'd like to use some kind of xvid for quality and filesize reasons.

I would just recommend any other CODEC.

But maybe it's not the CODEC at all, but something wrong inside the video file. It doesn't even play on my PC. Anyway in both cases I would not distribute a video in this format.

Games usually use a CODEC that is present on all end users PCs, such as MPEG. I haven't played a game yet that would require that users install a CODEC pack first.

Now we have the movie as MPEG, but I can still reproduce the problem :-(

That's interesting. I hope it's not something with your Windows installation. Can you send us that video? When the problem even happens with an MPEG, we should at least be able to reproduce it.

I've uploaded the new version. Thanks for taking a look at it.

http://www.infinite-dreams.de/3dgs/media_play-issue.zip

Regards,
Pegamode.

Have you been able to reproduce the problem?

Regards,
Pegamode.

No. The mpg played fine. We started it several 100 times in a batch file, but the handle was always nonzero. We could not reproduce the problem.

Do you have that problem only on a particular PC?

No. On different PCs and different Windows versions ...

Strange that you could not reproduce the problem.

With my testscript and those videos I hear the beep at every 3rd or 4th try while the movie is playing.

Have you also tried the videos with the testscript I provided?

Regards,
Pegamode.